Chapter 2: What Aunt Ruth Knew
I stood completely still and listened.
Derek's footsteps faded down the stairs.
Laughter drifted up from the brunch below.
They had already moved on.
To them, I was already handled.
I almost laughed.
I pulled out my phone and read the message again.
It was from a number I didn't recognize.
But the name inside the message — I knew that name.
*"He's been using you.
Ask him about the Hale Family Trust.
Ask him what happens to it if he dies unmarried before his 35th birthday.
He turns 35 in eleven days."*
Eleven days.
I sat on the edge of the bed.
Derek hadn't fallen in love with me over two years of careful courtship.
He had been running out of time.
I opened a second file on my phone.
One I had been building quietly for months.
Bank transfers.
Emails.
A conversation he'd had with Brenda that he didn't know I'd seen.
Then someone knocked softly on the bedroom door.
Not Derek's knock.
"Chloe." A woman's voice.
Barely a whisper.
"It's Aunt Ruth.
I need to tell you something about this family before it's too late."
I froze.
Aunt Ruth had barely looked at me all weekend.
May you like
Why was she here now?
What did she know that the others didn't want her to say?
